Part 26 (1/2)
[Footnote 38: _Like her father's._--Ver. 213. Latona alludes to one of the crimes of Tantalus, the father of Niobe, who was accused of having indiscreetly divulged the secrets of the G.o.ds.]
[Footnote 39: _Gives rein._--Ver. 230. This was done with the intention of making his escape.]
[Footnote 40: _Glowing with oil._--Ver. 241. Clarke renders this line, 'Were gone to the juvenile work of neat wrestling.' It would be hard to say what 'neat' wrestling is. He seems not to have known, that the 'Palaestra' was called 'nitida,' as s.h.i.+ning with the oil which the wrestlers used for making their limbs supple, and the more difficult for their antagonist to grasp. Juvenal gives the epithet 'ceromatic.u.m' to the neck of the athlete, or wrestler, which word means 'rubbed with wrestler's oil.']
[Footnote 41: _Now had they brought._--Ver. 243-4. Clarke thus translates 'Et jam contulerant arcto luctantia nexu Pectora pectoribus;' 'And now they had clapped breast to breast, struggling in a close hug.']
[Footnote 42: _I have received my death-blow._--Ver. 283.
'Efferor' literally means, 'I am carried out.' 'Effero' was the term used to signify the carrying of the body out of the city walls, for the purposes of burial.]
[Footnote 43: _Before the biers._--Ver. 289. The body of the deceased person was in ancient times laid out on a bed of the ordinary kind, with a pillow for supporting the head and back; among the Romans, it was placed in the vestibule of the house, with its feet towards the door, and was dressed in the best robe which the deceased had worn when alive. Among the better cla.s.ses, the body was borne to the place of burial, or the funeral pile, on a couch, which was called 'feretrum,' or 'capulus.' This was sometimes made of ivory, and covered with gold and purple.]
[Footnote 44: _Top of a mountain._--Ver. 311. This was Mount Sipylus, in Botia, which, as we learn from Pausanias, had on its summit a rock, which, at a distance, strongly resembled a female in an att.i.tude of sorrow. This resemblance is said to exist even at the present day.]
EXPLANATION.
All the ancient historians agree with Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus, that Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, and the sister of Pelops; but she must not be confounded with a second Niobe, who was the daughter of Phoroneus, and the first mortal (Homer tells us) with whom Jupiter fell in love. Homer says that she was the mother of twelve children, six sons and six daughters. Herodotus says, that she had but two sons and three daughters. Diodorus Siculus makes her the mother of fourteen children, seven of each s.e.x. Apollodorus, on the authority of Hesiod, says, that she had ten sons and as many daughters; but gives the names of fourteen only. The story of the destruction of her children is most likely based upon truth, and bears reference to a historical fact. The plague, which ravaged the city of Thebes, destroyed all the children of Niobe; and contagious distempers being attributed to the excessive heat of the sun, it was fabled that Apollo had killed them with his arrows; while women, who died of the plague, were said to owe their death to the anger of Diana. Thus, Homer says, that Laodamia and the mother of Andromache were killed by Diana. Valerius Flaccus relates the sorrow of Clytie, the wife of Cyzicus, on the death of her mother, killed by the same G.o.ddess; so the Scholiast on Pindar (Pythia, ode iii.) says, on the authority of Pherecydes, that Apollo sent Diana to kill Coronis and several other women. Eustathius distinctly a.s.serts, that the poets attributed the deaths of men, who died of the plague, to Apollo; and those of women, dying a similar death, to Diana.
This supposition is based upon rational and just grounds; since many contagious distempers may be clearly traced to the exhalations of the earth, acted on by the intense heat of the sun. Homer, most probably, means this, when he says that the plague came upon the Grecian camp, on the G.o.d, in his anger, discharging his arrows against it; or, in other words, when the extreme heat of his rays had caused a corruption of the atmosphere. It may be here observed, that arrows were the symbol of Apollo, when angry, and the harp when he was propitious.
Diogenes Laertius tells us, that, during the prevalence of the plague, it was the custom to place branches of laurel on the doors of the houses, in the hope that the G.o.d, being reminded of Daphne, would spare the places which thereby claimed his protection.
Ovid says, that the sons of Niobe were killed while managing their horses; but Pausanias tells us that they died on Mount Cithaeron, while engaged in hunting, and that her daughters died at Thebes. Homer says, that her children remained nine days without burial, because the G.o.ds changed the Thebans into stones, and that the offended Divinities themselves performed the funeral rites on the tenth day; the meaning probably, is, that, they dying of the plague, no one ventured to bury them, and all seemed insensible to the sorrows of Niobe, as each consulted his own safety. Ismenus, her eldest son, not being able to endure the pain of his malady, is said to have thrown himself into a river of Botia, which, from that circ.u.mstance, received his name.
After the death of her husband and children, Niobe is said to have retired to Mount Sipylus, in Lydia, where she died. Here, as Pausanias informs us, was a rock, resembling, at a distance, a woman overwhelmed with grief; though according to the same author, who had visited it, the resemblance could not be traced on approaching it. On this ground, Ovid relates, that she was borne on a whirlwind to the top of a Lydian mountain, where she was changed into a rock.
Pausanias tells us, that Meliba, or Chloris, and Amycle, two of her daughters, appeased Diana, who preserved their lives; or that, in other words, they recovered from the plague; though he inclines to credit the version of Homer, who says that all of her children died by the hands of Apollo and Diana. Meliba received the surname of Chloris, from the paleness which ensued on her alarm at the sudden death of her sisters.
FABLE III. [VI.313-381]
Latona, fatigued with the burden of her two children, during a long journey, and parched with thirst, goes to drink at a pond, near which some countrymen are at work. These clowns, in a brutal manner, not only hinder her from drinking, but trouble the water to make it muddy; on which, the G.o.ddess, to punish their brutality, transforms them into frogs.
But then, all, both women and men, dread the wrath of the divinity, {thus} manifested, and with more zeal {than ever} all venerate with {divine} wors.h.i.+p the great G.o.dhead of the Deity who produced the twins; and, as {commonly} happens, from a recent fact they recur to the narration of former events.
One of them says, ”Some countrymen of old, in the fields of fertile Lycia, {once} insulted the G.o.ddess, {but} not with impunity. The thing, indeed, is but little known, through the obscure station of the individuals, still it is wonderful. I have seen upon the spot, the pool and the lake noted for the miracle. For my father being now advanced in years, and incapable of travel, ordered me to bring thence some choice oxen, and on my setting out, had given me a guide of that nation: with whom, while I was traversing the pastures, behold! an ancient altar, black with the ashes of sacrifices, was standing in the middle of a lake, surrounded with quivering reeds. My guide stood still, and said in a timid whisper, 'Be propitious to me;' and with a like whisper, I said, 'Be propitious.' However, I asked him whether it was an altar of the Naiads, or of Faunus, or of some native G.o.d; when the stranger answered me in such words; 'Young man, there is no mountain Divinity for this altar. She calls this her own, whom once the royal Juno banished from the world; whom the wandering Delos, at the time when it was swimming as a light island, hardly received at her entreaties. There Latona, leaning against a palm, together with the tree of Pallas, brought forth twins, in spite of their stepmother {Juno}. Hence, too, the newly delivered {G.o.ddess} is said to have fled from Juno, and in her bosom to have carried the two divinities, her children. And now the G.o.ddess, wearied with her prolonged toil, being parched with the heat of the season, contracted thirst in the country of Lycia, which bred the Chimaera[45]
when the intense sun was scorching the fields; the craving children, too, had exhausted her suckling b.r.e.a.s.t.s. By chance she beheld a lake[46]
of fine water, in the bottom of a valley; some countrymen were there, gathering bushy osiers, together with bulrushes, and sedge natural to fenny spots. The t.i.taness approached, and bending her knee, she pressed the ground, that she might take up the cool water to drink; the company of rustics forbade it. The G.o.ddess thus addressed them, as they forbade her: 'Why do you deny me water? The use of water is common {to all}.
Nature has made neither sun, nor air, nor the running stream, the property of any one. To her public bounty have I come, which yet I humbly beg of you to grant me. I was not intending to bathe my limbs here, and my wearied joints, but to relieve my thirst. My mouth, as I speak, lacks moisture, and my jaws are parched, and scarce is there a pa.s.sage for my voice therein; a draught of water will be nectar to me, and I shall own, that, together with it, I have received my life {at your hands}. In {that} water you will be giving me life. Let these, too, move you, who hold out their little arms from my bosom'; and by chance the children were holding out their arms.
”What person might not these kindly words of the G.o.ddess have been able to influence? Still, they persist in hindering {the G.o.ddess thus} entreating them; and moreover add threats and abusive language, if she does not retire to a distance. Nor is this enough. They likewise muddy the lake itself {with} their feet and hands; and they raise the soft mud from the very bottom of the water, by spitefully jumping to and fro.
Resentment removes her thirst. For now no longer does the daughter of Caeus supplicate the unworthy {wretches}, nor does she any longer endure to utter words below {the majesty of} a G.o.ddess; and raising her hands to heaven, she says, 'For ever may you live in that pool.' The wish of the G.o.ddess comes to pa.s.s. They delight to go beneath the water, and sometimes to plunge the whole of their limbs in the deep pool; now to raise their heads, and now to swim on the top of the water; oft to sit on the bank of the pool, {and} often to leap back again into the cold stream. And even now do they exercise their offensive tongues in strife: and banis.h.i.+ng {all} shame, although they are beneath the water, {still} beneath the water,[47] do they try to keep up their abuse. Their voice, too, is now hoa.r.s.e, and their bloated necks swell out; and their very abuse dilates their extended jaws. Their backs are united to their heads: their necks seem as though cut off; their backbone is green; their belly, the greatest part of their body, is white; and {as} new-made frogs, they leap about in the muddy stream.”
[Footnote 45: _The Chimaera._--Ver. 339. The Chimaera, according to the poets, was a monster having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. It seems, however, that it was nothing more than a volcanic mountain of Lycia, in Asia Minor, whence there were occasional eruptions of flame. The top of it was frequented by lions; the middle afforded plentiful pasture for goats; and towards the bottom, being rocky, and full of caverns, it was infested by vast numbers of serpents, that harbored there.]
[Footnote 46: _Beheld a lake._--Ver. 343. Probus, in his Commentary on the Second Book of the Georgics, says that the name of the spring was Mela, and that of the shepherd who so churlishly repulsed Latona, was Neocles. Antoninus Liberalis says, that the name of the stream was Melites, and that Latona required the water for the purpose of bathing her children. He further tells us, that on being repulsed, she carried her children to the river Xanthus, and returning thence, hurled stones at the peasants, and changed them into frogs.]
[Footnote 47: _Beneath the water._--Ver. 376. Some commentators are so fanciful as to say, that the repet.i.tion of the words 'sub aqua,' in the line 'Quamvis sint sub aqua, sub aqua, maledicere tentant,' not inelegantly [non ineleganter] expresses the croaking noise of the frogs. A man's fancy must, indeed, be exuberant to find any such resemblance; more so, indeed, than that of Aristophanes, who makes his frogs say, by way of chorus, 'brekekekekex koax koax.' Possibly, however, that might have been the Attic dialect among frogs.]
EXPLANATION.